Worth
by Gandalf3213
Summary: A holiday is never just a holiday for Sherlock Holmes. When the train they are on is overrun by a band of mid-level crooks, Watson, feeling useless after recieving a letter from a war friend, volunteers himself as a hostage. Can Holmes find him in time?
1. Attempting a Holiday

_She spoke to the King, hoping he would forbid his son to go, but he said: "Well, dear, it's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get into a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them." **Eva Ibbotson**_

**_.***._**

"I do wish you were less foolhardy, Holmes. Those antics could have gotten yourself – and me – killed." Watson pressed his handkerchief again to his arm, which was bleeding profusely from the bullet that had nicked him. Looking over at his friend, Watson said, irritably, "Holmes, are you even listening to me?"

They were still standing at the place where the latest showdown had occurred: an old, abandoned, dusty house. Without taking the time to reflect on the absurd number of times their cases had led to such places, Watson took up his omnipresent walking stick and used it to poke at Holmes' legs. "Holmes!"

"Yes?" That far-off tone, and Watson knew he wouldn't be getting much of an apology out of his friend until much later, if ever. Holmes tended to stubbornly stick by his plans, even if they succeeded only in getting himself or those around him hurt.

"One day they'll kill you, Holmes, and you'll still say that you came out on top." Looking over Holmes' shoulder, he saw the unwelcome figure of Lestrade coming towards them. "Let's get out of here, old boy."

Nodding, Holmes allowed himself to be dragged away from the crime scene and into a carriage. "221B Baker Street." Watson said, then coughed and shifted as the bullet wound made itself known.

Coming out of the trance violence and crime always put him in, Holmes blinked slowly and looked around. "Watson… you're injured."

"Not for the first time, Holmes, it's a scratch." But he knew it was more, that it needed stitches at least, and he was loathe to go to the hospital when he wasn't actually working there. "Perhaps you can sew it for me when we reach the rooms?"

Holmes blinked in surprise. "Is that necessary?" Watson let the handkerchief fall, revealing a swath of skin that had been cut away as if by magic.

Something flickered across Holmes' face. Surprise? Guilt? Worry? Watson had neither the time not inclination to guess. The wound seemed to have sapped any energy he'd had. No longer was he a young soldier in Afghanistan, India, where he would have continued working after such injuries. He needed rest, and a good stiff drink, before he could put this particular encounter behind him.

"Perhaps you'll be less reckless in the future, Holmes." Watson leaned his head back against the wall of the carriage, letting the rhythmic _thump-thud_ of the horses' hooves steady his frayed nerves. Opening one eye, he caught sight of his companion's expression and sighed, resigned. "Or perhaps not."

Baker Street that evening was an affair. When they walked in, Watson collapsed heavily into his usual chair and could not find the strength to rouse himself. "Get the needle, Holmes." He looked down at his arm, the cut gaping grotesquely on the skin. "And some brandy."

Once the world had taken on the familiar haze of drink and the throbbing in his arm was no longer unbearable, Watson talked Holmes through the operation. "Is this really the first time you've performed such a mundane exercise? I would have thought you'd done this many times."

Holmes often returned from boxing at the club bleeding, battered, and Watson would sew him up on these occasions, biting back any advice he had to _slow down, please, you're going to kill yourself_ because he knew Holmes would not appreciate the sentiment. Watson had been sewing for years, since his early twenties in medical school, then seriously in his late twenties in the dust and gore of Afghanistan in the Queen's army. It had never occurred to him that Holmes, so often injured and so learned in other areas, had never performed the task of stitching people back together.

"I have sewn." But Holmes still did not move the needle closer to that part of Watson's arm that the doctor could no longer look at. "The cadavers at the school -"

"Do not count, as they can't express pain when you've done it wrong." Watson sighed, wondered if not visiting the hospital had been an intelligent move, and ran his good hand over his face. "You have sterilized the needle, right?"

Holmes stared at him, then grabbed the matchbook from his pocket and expertly lit the flame as Watson let out yet another sigh and poured himself another glass of brandy, because it seemed as if he would be needing it.

"Now just…sew. Like you would your ludicrous costumes." But even the warmth of the brandy couldn't fend off the sudden pain of the harsh jab. "Gently, Holmes!"

"Sorry." It was one of the rare looks of contrition, and Watson shook his head.

"I am not a corpse, Holmes. You just stuck the needle a half-inch into my skin." Using his free hand, he placed it on top of Holmes' shaking one. "Please, be careful." A lefty Watson wasn't, but small touches were enough to influence Holmes' hand.

In ten minutes, after a few more drinks, Watson had thirteen more stitches to add to his list and Holmes had placed his pipe resolutely between his teeth, plucking absently at his violin.

"It was a close call today, Holmes." Watson remarked, his hands absent-mindedly trailing along the floor, the table, looking for something, anything, to read.

"We finished the case." Holmes said, almost to himself.

"Ah," Watson murmured, picking up a manuscript from the side table and peering at it. His arm did ache terribly, but perhaps a bit of revision would not make it protest overmuch. "The problem, my dear Holmes, is that in your line of work, one case seems to roll seamlessly into another. I do not doubt that you will have another one before the week is out."

The words had no particular malice behind them. Watson had no delusions about the lives of either him or Holmes: they both thrived, in different ways, off of the thrill the cases brought them. There were times when the endless litany of clues and red herrings, followed by small details and the final reveal, would wear on the veteran, but when push came to shove he knew that he would not miss a single one of Holmes' mysteries for the world.

Except (and here Watson had to exhale a small sigh) he did wish Holmes would be less foolhardy. There were times, when they were deep in a case, where Watson would swear that the world could go to hell in a hand basket and his companion would never notice.

His hand drifted momentarily up to the wound, fingered the stitches, uneven and large but stemming the flow of blood nonetheless.

Suddenly Holmes was at his side, a handkerchief in hand and remorse in his eyes. He pressed the cloth against the wound and held it, an apology of sorts that was strengthened by his next sentence.

"Perhaps a holiday is in order," his words were not very loud, an oddity for the alternately robust and melancholic personality, but they were an atonement, and Watson recognized them as such. "The sea-side is supposed to be…interesting."

"You hate the sea, Holmes." Watson reminded him, "And, anyway, every holiday turns into a case."

"Not this time." Holmes vowed, staring at Watson's wound with a strange fire. "I can wallow at the sea-side just as well as I can at Baker Street…besides, I've been meaning to pen a few articles on the forensics of our last cases, those parts that you always seem to leave out of your romanticized works."

"The public is not as interested in insects and fingerprints as you are, Holmes."

"And anyway," Holmes continued as if Watson hadn't spoken, lifting away the hanky to reveal red, "Even if I do not like the sea-side, you seem to enjoy it immensely."

This touched Watson in a way that he could never sufficiently explain to someone who didn't know Holmes well. He smiled ruefully, blotting out a few words in his manuscript with a practiced hand. A week at the sea might do them both some good.

**But, of course, for this dynamic duo, things like vacations are not easy to come by, unless they are of the working variety.**

**Please, good reader, review!**


	2. Dispatches, Delinquents, and Dumb Moves

_Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin," he said. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity…yes, indeed." **J. K. Rowling**_

**_.***._**

"You seem quite distressed, Watson."

Watson peered over the edge of his letter at Holmes, who didn't seem distressed at all. In fact, on the crowded train, Holmes looked entirely at home. Even in his grief, Watson allowed a small smile play around his lips, because this _was_ Holmes' element. Being in a car full of people was the kind of mental exercise Sherlock Holmes lived for.

"This letter," Watson shook the paper a little, though it might have been a pretense, for his own hands were shaking. "Is from my old colleague, Murray, who –"

"Carried you off the battlefield after you sustained your wounds." Holmes finished absent-mindedly, staring fixedly at the roundness of a pregnant woman's stomach. "Should females travel in such a conditions?"

Watson sighed, wondering why he stuck around a friend who did not listen to a word he said and was apt to make embarrassing social _faux pas_, including talking too loud about a woman's "delicate situation."

Despite Holmes' apparent disinterest in Murray's most recent letter, Watson pressed on, almost as if to re-iterate the facts to himself. "He was my aide…barely more than a child, though I suppose I was but five years his senior, with nothing more than a Residency under my belt. Now he has passed his necessary tests to become a certified doctor. All in the jungles of Afghanistan!"

"That is good news." Watson raised an eyebrow – by far the easiest way of dealing with his absent-minded, round-about roommate. "From your expression I thought his situation more dire than that."

Watson leaned forward on the seat of the train-car and stared at the scenery, flowing by at a constant speed, before turning back to Holmes. "Did you never have the fire in your blood to become a soldier? I daresay you would have been an excellent strategian."

"And a horrid grunt. No, I never aspired to life on the battle fields. My passion lies more towards unraveling murders than perpetrating them. Do you believe that man is having affair with the young woman next to him? She is certainly not his wife…"

Watson sighed and folded the letter again, putting it in his breast pocket. He enjoyed corresponding with Murray –as he owed the young man his life, it seemed the least he could do was read and reply to the letters. Still, they brought on a certain feeling of…ineptitude. Though he'd never been destined for a career as a military man, he nonetheless wished he could have finished his tour more honorably than bullets in the leg.

"Cheer up, ol' boy, it seems as if we have a mystery on our hands."

Watson ignored Holmes. He was as curious as the next person about the lives of strangers, and read the gossip columns obsessively, but when he was in a public setting he was content enough not to pry into affairs that were not his business. But Holmes never could leave the well enough alone...

Turning away from the detective and his rapt attention on the old, rich gentleman and the comely maiden, Watson knocked his elbow against the person to his immediate left. "Excuse me," he murmured perfunctorily, then glanced up at the face, "Oh, really, excuse me."

"Quite alright." The woman said, her voice robust and energetic. She patted her expansive stomach, the thing Watson had bumped into. "This here is my fifth. I'm just trying to get home before he rushes out."

"Ah," Watson, as a doctor, was perhaps a little less embarrassed by the natural condition of women, but it was nonetheless something to be talked about as seldom as possible. "Well…"

"My other four are clamoring to name him – I'm sure it's a boy, I've carried two girls and two boys and they carry quite differently – but I've promised his father I'd name this one for him…I would have done it before, but I was putting it off, hoping for girls…I do think Harold is such an _awful_ name."

The words came in such rapid fire that Watson found himself nodding along faster than he could actually process them. The woman's openness about her pregnancy was new and startling to him, and he found that he was really quite interested. "Do you find boys harder than girls, or vice versa?"

"Boys are easier to carry, for sure, but girls are just as quiet as lambs as soon as they're able. Boys seem to enjoy creating a stir." She peered at him for a moment, then said, knowingly. "No children?"

"Unfortunately, my wife passed before we were able. I would have accepted children quite gladly."

"And no doubt mastered them. Parenthood is not a difficult burden, but one must learn the ropes. It is a skill that needs to be cultivated." Watson nodded his understanding. He had worked with pediatrics often enough since his discharge from the army to realize that there were many out there who had no interest in nurturing the parenting gene.

"Watson, if you are quite finished…" Watson turned his attention back to Holmes, who still seemed to be staring quite fixedly at the old gentleman and young lady. "I do believe our case has found us."

"So soon?" Watson bemoaned playfully. It was a running joke between the pair and the Yard that they should never leave home, for crime seemed to spring up at their very feet. "Do excuse me, Mrs…."

"Birchtold. And it's not trouble at all, it's a pleasure talking to a man who doesn't treat me as a leper." She turned away from him, able to bend over just enough to draw out a sewing bag.

Watson turned to Holmes, drawing up all the patient that the detective seemed to sap from him so quickly. "What have you found, old chap?"

Holmes smiled slyly, though perhaps only Watson would be able to see the humor behind the grin. "The hunt it afoot. See those men? They are about to do something quite rash indeed."

Long ago Watson had mastered the art of staring without appearing to do so. He turned to humor his partner and caught a glimpse of three young men, university-aged, carrying cumbersome bags and appearing to be quite agitated. "If you know something is going to happen, why don't you stop it?"

"And ruin the fun?"

"You baffle me, Holmes." But Watson had to admit that he liked watching events unfold as well. The three men did look the part of the low-level criminal. Sly and stealthy though they obviously thought they were, it took only a quick second's look to deduce that they were running blind and scared. There was a constable from the Yard at the other end of the car, though, and Watson knew that there were several others throughout the train. The guard was staring at the trio avidly, and Watson knew that as soon as the train stopped he would suggest that the young men come with him. If they refused, they'd be brought to Scotland Yard by force.

Now that Holmes had drawn his attention to these men, it was difficult to imagine ever _not_ paying attention to them, and as the train rattled away the miles Watson committed their faces to memory and their descriptions to his book, which he placed in his coat pocket next to Murray's letter.

The tallest stood a way apart from the other two. His muscular body and tanned skin proved him to be one used to rigorous outdoor activity, and his sharp, piercing gaze and intelligent-looking face suggested cunning as well as brute force. The other two Watson surmised as brothers, close cousins, or good friends. One was very near to the age of the tallest, the leader, and kept casting looks between the leader and his (brother?), hand twitching agitatedly at his side. He, too, bore the look of a laborer, with brown hair bleached almost blond by the summer sun. The youngest (for he was youngest by at least four years) was scarcely more than a teenager. He looked excited, but apprehensive, and looked around the train's cabin anxiously, as if waiting for a ghost to appear and say _boo_.

"Low level." Holmes was whispering, "Their first heist, no doubt, and they have very little in the way of plans for getting away from the train, or, indeed, how to get off of it. That is what the tall one is trying to figure out. If it came down to a split in the group, though, the tallest would be outnumbered."

Watson nodded, having surmised as much from his own observing. "I believe the other two are brothers."

Holmes looked, as he always did when Watson made an accurate statement, rather surprised, and pleased almost to the point of pride. "Indeed. The cleft of the chin is almost certainly a family trait." As he spoke, the tallest of the group moved over to the other two, whispering fast. "I believe he's just concocted a plan."

Watson glanced at his watch. They would be arriving at the next station in two minutes, and from the look of the official on the other end of the train, and the two who he had gathered beside him, the three men were not getting out of the situation unless something drastically changed. "They'll have to do something soon, we're pulling in…"

As if his words had triggered it, the older of the brothers nodded, thrusting his hand into his jacket and pulling out that most brutal of all weapons. The gun fired once, and Watson thought it lucky that it embedded itself harmlessly in the wall and not into someone's back. Holmes was immediately on his feet, the glint of adventure in his eye even as his lips pressed into a hard, grim line.

Before anyone – Holmes, Watson, or the constables – could make a move, though, the lead member of the gang grabbed the woman Watson had been talking to by the back of her dress, drawing her towards him with strength that a woman eight months along couldn't fight off.

"Ah," Holmes said, "They are not thinking this through. A hostage situation very rarely works for the criminals." He paused, thinking, "Or the victims. Watson -!"

For Watson was already propping himself to his feet, cane in hand, Murray's letter in his pocket, going towards the gang of young men with the same resolute air he'd had going into battle in Afghanistan. "That woman is pregnant!" he thundered, and Holmes couldn't help the small groan. Watson was in what Holmes had secretly dubbed his "doctor-mode". Very protective. Very righteous. "You must not stress her in her condition!"

As if on cue, the woman gasped in sudden pain and Watson started forward to help her, only to be seized by another one of the gang. Holmes had no doubt that if Watson had wanted to fight the young man, he would have come out on top, but Watson was resolute in only one desire – to help the woman and her unborn child.

"Two hostages are always better than one!" The leader of the small gang said to the constables, to the entire car. "We're getting off at the next stop – alone! – or these two die!" Here he struck a fist into Watson's side and Holmes was proud to see that his Boswell didn't so much as flinch.

Instead, Watson stared straight at Holmes, a small smile surprisingly fixed to his lips, "I told you, Holmes. We never get our holiday."

**To answer the time period questions: After the Great Hiatus, after Mary's death. Thanks for all the brilliant reviews - we really didn't expect that many.**

**Now we sound spoiled when we ask for more reviews, please.**


	3. Conversations With Oneself

_"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival." **C. S. Lewis** _

**_.***._**

Holmes felt panic surge in him as he watched the three young thugs manhandle Watson and the woman, cringing with the pains of labor, off the train. Why, oh why, did his companion have to be noble at inopportune moments?

"Constable!" Holmes barked, rounding on the train officers once the train started again. As per the criminals' wishes, not a single person had gotten off at the last stop. But Holmes was never one for twiddling his thumbs and waiting patiently. "Where is the next stop?"

"Forty-five minutes down the line, sir. We've already wired the police in Surrey, where those men got off. With luck they'll catch them at the train."

"It is my experience that luck is rarely on the side of the bumbling law enforcement." Holmes snapped, his nerves in tatters. He felt very lost without his Boswell, and it was such a helpless feeling that he pushed it aside until he didn't exist. He had survived without Watson before and he could do it now. "How fast is the train moving?"

The look of surprise that filled the young man's face was almost worth the pains this ludicrous plan would bring him. The rational side of his brain, the side that had remained unattached to his roommate all these years, was screaming at him to think of a plan before diving into action. He knew that jumping the train and pursuing the criminals on foot was not the foolproof plan he wished it was, but he could think of no better course while the memory of trigger-happy, nervous criminals invaded his mind.

"Sir, you can't jump the train!" Holmes fixed the young officer with such a scathing look that his ears burned red, but, for his credit, he didn't back down. "You'll kill yourself. Best wait for the professionals to get your friend."

"I am a professional." Holmes hissed, already pushing past the constable to get off the train. "And I know the powers of the law enforcement better than the average citizen."

"Holmes!" A barking order from the back of the train, and Holmes cringed at his name. Just as he was about to sort this out for himself! An older officer jogged up to him, face red with the exertion. "Are you Sherlock Holmes?" He asked, piece of paper in hand. Without waiting for an answer, he shoved the paper at Holmes. "Telegram for you."

Holmes had informed no one of this holiday outside of Mrs. Hudson, but was unsurprised to see Lestrade's name at the bottom of the letter. It was in accordance with that dastardly Murphey's Law that his favorite Scotland Yard officer should be in charge of this peculiar case. It read:

HOLMES;

HEARD ABOUT TRAIN ROBBERY STOP AM SENDING A UNIT TO SURREY AT ONCE STOP THESE CRIMINALS ARE ARMED AND DANGEROUS STOP DO NOT PURSUE ON YOUR OWN STOP WILL WAIT FOR YOU AT NEXT TERMANIL STOP SORRY ABOUT THE GOOD DOCTOR STOP

INSPECTOR G LESTRADE, SCOTLAND YARD

_Sorry about the good doctor_. Holmes felt his lip curl at the words, instinctively hating what they implied – that when they recovered Watson he would be in a state to be sorry about. Still, the letter had the desired effect and Holmes felt his hands fold the missive in half, in quarters, and stuff it in his pocket. His half-baked plan to leap madly from the train and run after the criminals had been, mercifully, derailed, and Holmes found himself sinking into a nearby seat, regarding the train with practiced eyes.

The constables were running around, some with telegrams in hand, others relaying messages by cupping a hand around the ear of a superior. They seemed in a much worse state than the passengers. One look at the people riding the train, and Holmes had a renewed sense of awe for the human capacity to adapt to odd circumstances. Some looked shaken by the earlier gun and outright kidnapping of two people, others had already brushed it off. One man was dozing, another (the old man with the much younger mistress) was calmly talking to his partner.

How could they be so calm after such an event had taken place? Once again, concern for Watson's safety flared to the surface of his mind, and suddenly, irrationally he thought of his friend holding a letter from the war comrade still in the field.

Following on the heels of that memory was the recollection of the reason behind the holiday in the first place: Watson had recently been hit by a bullet, and even if he insisted that it wasn't paining him, the damp season and the now-constant limp certainly were. How would he put up with being dragged all over the city while trying to ease a woman giving birth?

Banishing these thoughts – what could he do for Watson without a plan? – Holmes set about trying to find the nearest constable who looked like he had a damned idea what was going on.

They all resembled chickens with their heads cut off – Holmes had the personal pleasure of seeing such a sight, and the cliché that seemed to permeate the English language was an apt one. With little organization and less plan of action, it seemed like this particular brand of the Foolish Constable were well on their way to letting the criminals roam free.

Holmes leaned on his fingertips, talking out loud despite himself. When had he stopped keeping the observations to himself? A petulant, sad little voice in the back of his mind screamed _since Watson_ and he pushed the voice back with the others. Memories of his Watson were not the best at keeping his logic infallible.

"There were three of them…the bags they were carrying obviously contained valuables of some sort. Money. Gold. Jewels. Animals. It could be any number of things, though of course the limited space in the bags allows us -" who this _us_ was Holmes didn't even dare guess, "to eliminate at least some possibilities. For example, they probably were not Arabs who recently shanghaied several young women."

Watson, at this point, would tell him to get on, to drop whatever sort of circular reasoning that had led him around to Arabs and their shanghei-ing practices. And Holmes chose, at this point, to obey that imaginary Watson.

"So let's assume it's money. Logical, since I observed a bank car attached near the end of this train. Those young men looked unprofessional – their first large job, I wager. Why venture into the world of criminals? Because they needed something. Again, assuming money is logical."

Here Watson would interject, excusing himself, embarrassed to even be attempting to solve a case. After all, he was but a simple doctor, however, what if these young men were working for someone higher up in the criminal underworld?

And Holmes would never reveal the irrational burst of pride he felt whenever Watson brought up these points. A fledgling detective in the making.

"You're right, of course, they could be pulling the job for someone else, but I find that unlikely. They would have been trained, put on jobs of ever-increasing difficulties. This fumbled theft has no finesse, as one who throws a child into the sea and expects them to swim. No, Watson, they were working for themselves. Not well, I might add."

And Watson would lift an eyebrow, pen poised above paper. Well enough, Holmes. He would say. Well enough that they escaped the train with two hostages in tow.

Holmes sighed at the irrefutable point. Yes, though these three were obviously new at the game of larceny they had foiled a train full of constables (not to mention he, Holmes) and gotten off the train with the valuables, Watson, and a woman in labor seemingly home free.

He could only hope that they wouldn't fumble with their hostages as they did with the burglary. New criminals, inexperienced criminals, tended to think irrationally, tended towards violence. If these had been old pros, perhaps Holmes' heart would not be beating so furiously at the thought of Watson in their grasp. Old hats would know that two in the hand were worth more than two in the grave. But in a moment of pressure, would one of the three – especially the trigger-happy leader – give in to the temptation to shoot first and ask questions later?

Here Watson would sigh that tired little sigh and shrug, his face a picture of pain, because Watson just felt things too deeply. He was a doctor, a protector of life, and the mere thought of others' suffering was enough to make him cringe. And he would look at Holmes and offer the only little cliché that came to mind. Well, Holmes, his Watson would mutter from across the train car, you can't save them all.

"But I can save you!" Holmes hissed savagely, aware that there were several other passengers looking at him now. But he refused to back down now, saying harshly to the imaginary Watson, "How could I let them kill you?"

Watson had no answer to this, because the situation had never come up where Holmes felt so utterly powerless to save his friend and therefore could not predict his reaction when Holmes let the worry seep into his words.

The passengers he shared the train with turned back to each other, their newspapers and children and lives, leaving Holmes sitting across from an imaginary friend and feeling utterly alone.

**Our knowledge of England's geography equals exactly nil, so if we're putting places next to each other when they're really a country apart...sorry.**

**Now we sound spoiled when we ask for more reviews, please.**


	4. Ingenuity and Indignity

_**A patient (asking Wilson about House):** Does he care about you?  
__**Wilson:** I think so  
__**The patient:** You don't know?  
**Wilson:** As Dr. House likes to say, 'Everybody lies.'  
__**The patient:** It's not what people say. It's what they do.  
__**Wilson (deliberating):** Yes, he cares about me._

**_.***._**

Watson tried to remember his minimal training with birthing babies from his school days, careful not to let his worry show on his face as the woman in labor, Mrs. Birchtold, gave out yet another piercing scream.

"Shut up!" It was the youngest of their captors, a boy who'd been addressed by the others as Sammy. He held his gun as if it would bite him at the slightest provocation. "Shut up!"

As a doctor, Watson couldn't allow a gun to be pointed at his patients. "Were you expecting silence when you decided that a woman in labor was the best hostage?" He didn't snap out the words, as Holmes probably would have done. Thinking of his roommate made Watson's lips twitch slightly. The smile – right in the face of danger – went perfectly with his too-calm demeanor.

The brother of the youngest, almost as old as the leader and masquerading under the name Jack grabbed his brother by the collar and, almost as a second thought, slugged Watson hard across the face. "We got what we needed out of them. We got off the train."

"Then it doesn't matter what we do with them." Sammy said, wriggling out of his brother's grasp and pointing the gun back at Mrs. Birchtold, who closed her eyes tight, puffing moans. "We should just kill them now and dump the bodies at the house."

Jack tugged his brother back again, this time mercifully leaving out the punch. "Have you gone mad? That thing goes off in here and you'll lose a couple of fingers, not to mention scare the horses and street folks." He paused for a second, then added, in a lower voice, "And the job was too botched for Zach to be forgiving."

Watson leaned back towards his patient, muttering what he hoped to be soothing words as he rubbed his bruised jaw. He had managed to piece together the fundamentals of the group: the oldest, the leader, was Zach, a man of little patience and less foresight, the one who knew that robbing a train car would get them money but who didn't think of how to get off the train. Jack, the older brother, seemed more concerned about his sibling than he did about the money. Sammy, the youngest, was stubborn, headstrong.

Typical, for Watson to be the captive of such young people. He had been trying to think of a way out of the situation since he'd volunteered himself to go with the laboring Mrs. Birchtold, but could come up with nothing better than _don't mouth off…don't get killed…wait for Holmes_.

"We're dropping them at the house." Zach called from the front of the cart. "In the basement." The wind whipped away the rest of his words, but from the expressions on the brothers' faces Watson could guess that being stuck in the basement of this house was to their liking. They instantly relaxed, and Sammy began fingering the bags of money.

Mrs. Birchtold gave another strangled cry and Watson patted her on the shoulder, wishing, not the for the first time, for a hospital and adequate facilities to help the painful birthing process. He'd done a cursory check and placed the time of birth at three or four hours off, at the very most. She should be monitored constantly, of course, but they were both old enough to have a sense of decency. A carriage, especially one filled with kidnapper thugs, was no place for such business.

It turned out that the house was not so far off. If he was honest with himself, Watson would admit that he was expecting to see the law enforcement had beaten them there, but the small shack maintained the dusty look of long abandonment.

When their captors made to throw them out of the cart, Watson had to intervene. "No!" he yelled, placing himself in front of the leader as he went to pull Mrs. Birchtold bodily from the cart. He ended up with several punches to the gut and Mrs. Birchtold being dragged out anyway, screaming.

"So we just stash them in the basement, Zach?"

"Yeah, the river will take care of the rest."

"That lady is pretty pregnant, mate."

"Don't matter. We got our money."

"And the guy's friend seemed pretty set on getting him back. You see his face?"

"Don't matter! They'll be long gone!"

This quick exchange took place as Watson and his female companion were being pushed into the house, shoved down the staircase. Watson barely had time to register the dark room they went through, the trapdoor almost completely hidden under a rug, the stairs, wet and slick,that they were pushed down.

"Please!" Watson cried, landing hard on both his shoulder and knee (he had _known_ that he would rip Holmes' dastardly stitches!) and shouting up at the head silhouetted in the square of light far above. "Please, I need medicine…blankets, towels, water."

It must have been the older brother, Jack, who Watson perceived as the most empathetic, for he hesitated for a moment before saying, quickly, sincerely. "I'm sorry."

And then the trapdoor was shut, and they were left in darkness.

With a match, Watson was able to find a basin, but no water, and a stack of wet candles. "They won't light." He murmured to himself, but tried anyway. There was, at this point, nothing to lose. To his surprise, Fate seemed to be on his side, at least in this matter. The flame took instantly to the wick and the room was illuminated in that eerie, bouncing glow of a flame.

He barely took the time to look around the room – already he knew that there was little in the way of survival items, and Mrs. Birchtold's cries were getting louder and closer together. All he had time for was one quick glance at the open window, noting with dread how there seemed to be water endlessly seeping through it. The river was rising.

"I'm sorry I can't do more for you." Watson murmured, stroking Mrs. Birchtold's fingers as they clenched with pain. "But the baby should come, in time, and I've birthed them in worse conditions."

This was the utmost truth – Watson tended to only speak in truths. He'd once birthed a baby while serving in the military. One of the natives, shot down by their bullets, had been a woman round with child. The soldier who'd shot her had carried her nearly a mile to get her to Watson. In the stinking, awful heat of Afghanistan, surrounded by gunshots and screams of the dying, the woman had given birth before succumbing to her injuries.

Watson vowed that the scenario would play out differently this time. He, Mrs. Birchtold, and the baby would all get out of this god-forsaken basement, alive.

"Don't…" Mrs. Birchtold was murmuring in Watson's ear, and he turned to her, "Don't…talk about the baby. Talk about anything else…about our escape…"

Watson understood. Distraction was often the best when it came to pain that could not be dulled. "In truth, I have no plans for escape. I leave those to Holmes. He was my companion on the train."

"The abrupt young man." Mrs. Birchtold hissed, her teeth clenched.

"Abrupt. Rude. Distracted. But he has a brilliant mind." Watson paused for a moment, coughing delicately as he examined the woman who was trying so hard to appear stoic about opening her most private parts in front of a man she'd met just a few hours ago on a train home.

Mrs. Birchtold caught his fingers and squeezed, hard. "He is a friend?"

Watson could understand her wanting to know: a friend would search towns and cities to find Watson, a companion…might not. But, at her question, Watson rocked back on his heels, remembering the war wound in his leg too late and wishing for his cane, which had been forgotten somewhere between the train the here.

Was Holmes his friend? He'd called so many other people in his life friends – schoolmates, fellow doctors, his aide, Murray, whose letter now resided in his pocket. But Holmes was a different entity entirely, one who seemed to not crave acquaintances in the way other humans did. Could one be friends with someone who so obviously didn't require any?

"I care for him a great deal." Watson admitted, "But I'm not sure if he would return the sentiment. He is not one for making friends, Holmes." Strange, how after so many years of living together, working together, going into danger together, their relationship was still so much an enigma. Watson knew, instinctively, that his partner's life was worth so much more than his own. The question here was, of course, if Holmes thought his was worth anything at all.

Not prone to being pessimistic, Watson smiled, "He will find us anyway. I have utmost faith in his abilities as a detective. And he cannot leave a case unturned, especially when the criminals got away right under his nose."

Mrs. Birchtold gripped his fingers again, hard, another spasm rocketing through her body. Watson worried about her health, about the baby, being born a month early and in a dank, dirty basement. But what could he do, besides murmur meaningless words of encouragement and hope for the best?

When the wave of pain was over, Mrs. Birchtold lay limp in his arms, sweaty and lifeless. "He cares for you." Her voice was barely a whisper, wheezing with exertion. "I saw his face when you volunteered to come with me. He cares for you."

That was beside the point now. Watson had a woman in his arms who might die in childbirth. Such a thing had happened even in well-equipped hospitals and certainly might happen now. He would deliver this baby, and it would take all of his faculties to do it. He could only hope that Holmes would deliver them from this cellar before the water rushed in, before it was too late for them all.

**Does anyone else see the similarities between House and Watson and Holmes and Watson (besides their initials?)**

**Thanks for the reviews! There are so many more than we expected. If everyone could just keep doing that...**


	5. Between Madness and Miraculous

_Grief is the price we pay for love. **Elizabeth II**_

Holmes nearly barreled over Lestrade when he ran to him, full tilt, as soon as the train stopped. "Are there any leads?" he asked, breathless. They had already lost forty-five minutes because of the train. He could only hope that the inspector had been working that whole time.

Lestrade's eyes instantly, instinctively, looked slightly over Holmes' shoulder, to the right. He and Watson had always gotten on, Watson being a more forgiving soul that Holmes, a gambler and card player besides. He and Lestrade had spent a fair few nights together at various clubs. It was his absence from his usual place at Holmes' side that made it suddenly impossible for Lestrade to breathe.

They'd had cases like this before. Too many to count, really. A victim would be taken as a hostage and the Yard would get there, minutes or hours too late. But the time didn't matter – whether you arrived on the scene thirty seconds after the gunshot or two weeks, the victim would still be dead and Lestrade would be left with another soul on his conscience.

But never before had it been someone Lestrade knew so intimately. Holmes and Watson had been working on cases with the Yard for years. Even during Holmes' still unexplained three year absence, Lestrade would occasionally find his companion at crime scenes, assisting the coroner or just staring at the debris idly, catching onto minute details as Holmes had schooled him.

Watson was interesting, intelligent, likable. To many men on the force, he had taken on the role of mentor, guide, even father figure, being older than some of the rookies by several decades. It was for this reason alone, not because of Holmes' blustering, that the entirety of the Scotland Yard flocked to this case.

Watson would not end up as another statistic on some half-remembered sheet. Not if they had anything to say about it.

Lestrade cleared his throat, ripped his eyes away from the spot at Holmes' shoulder where Watson should have been. "There have been quite a few leads, Holmes. My men have caught one of the delinquents from the train. Hopkins is with him now, but thus far he has given away no clues as to where Watson and the woman might be."

Holmes' whole self had brightened at the mention of the capture. He had been so sure that Watson would be with the young men, who seemed daft and ignorant enough to keep the hostages with them at all times.

However, if Watson had not been found, then Sherlock knew that the odds were in favor of his companion being found dead, lost in some ditch on the side of a country road, no doubt gripping the poor woman in an effort to quell the fear that came with the sudden realization that life as they knew it was over.

Forcing the picture of Watson, dirty, bloody, mangled and forgotten, out of his mind, Holmes let himself stare down Lestrade. It was something he'd always been exceptionally good at, for Lestrade was weak-willed and brainless, despite his sputtering exclamations to the contrary.

"I need to see that man." Holmes demanded.

Lestrade wasn't shocked, but the tone of Holmes' voice made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He'd seen Holmes like this only once, when the Yard had arrived at the house of an old collector to find Killer Evans at gunpoint and Holmes pacing, tiger-like, in front of a wounded Watson. Then, like now, Lestrade had realized that this was not a man he wanted as a sworn enemy.

"No, Holmes, I've got my best men on the case. They'll get a confession soon enough – these lads are young. They don't know what they're doing." Lestrade knew that his pleadings would be for naught, but he was trying to aid the foolish detective.

The boys would spill to an irate Holmes – who wouldn't? But then Holmes would take off in whatever direction the information led him in, and despite Lestrade's wishes for the contrary, years of Yard work and too many bad cases made the officer believe, in his heart of hearts, that old, gentle Watson was dead.

If that was the case, he certainly did not want Holmes to find him first. Holmes, who probably didn't even know how much he relied on the good doctor. The sight of his body would crush him, as it would any man, and though Lestrade didn't much care for Holmes, thinking him pompous and crass, he certainly didn't want him to be subjected to the sight of his best friend, carelessly tossed aside like rubbish.

"I will see that man, Lestrade, with your permission or not." It was only then that Lestrade realized that Holmes was quivering ever so slightly, making him look like a man not entirely in control of his mind.

It was that physical manifestation of the emotion boiling in Holmes that made Lestrade quietly consent. Because if this was getting the great, stoic Sherlock Holmes emotional, no one was going to be able to stop him, anyway.

And Lestrade did not want Holmes as a sworn enemy.

.***.

Holmes barreled through the police station. It wasn't the Yard office in London that he was used to – this country outpost was small, cozy almost. And Holmes wanted to tear it apart.

He barged into the room, not caring that Hopkins and his new protégé were already in the middle of their good cop/bad cop routine. He slammed his fists on the table, enraged as he'd never been during a case. Perhaps because this wasn't just another role, another persona to slip into at will. This was his life, his Watson. It was supposed to just be a holiday…

"Where is he?" Lestrade winced, not because Holmes was shouting. A loud Holmes was something he could – and did – deal with daily. But this deadly quiet version seethed with such power that those tiny hairs on the back of his neck were sticking up again.

The young man winced. Away from his cronies, he looked harmless. Scared, even. His eyes darted from Hopkins and his partner, both sitting ramrod-straight in their chairs, to Lestrade, hovering in the doorway, ready to intervene, and finally to Holmes, breathing heavily with his hand clenched into a fist.

There wasn't much of an option here. Jack had been against hostages from the beginning, recognizing them as a hair-brained scheme of Zach's that was liable to get him and his brother killed. They'd only needed two hundred pounds to pay off their debts and get back on their feet. It was Zach, as always, who'd taken it to the next level. Zach who'd wanted to rob a train, to bring guns, to take the pregnant woman and limping veteran.

And any loyalty to Zach Jack had once felt had ended when the older man had shot his little brother over _money_. He hadn't been able to save his brother today, but perhaps he could save this doctor and his patient.

Still, he looked down at his hands, wondering how three hours ago they'd been on top of the world, high on success, and now Sammy was dead and he was looking at a life of prison.

"Now!" Holmes barked, making everyone in the room jump just a little. They were all on edge.

"He's at the old mill," Jack looked down at his second-hand watch. It was second-hand, but still accurate. They were nearly out of time. "It floods every day near five, and Zach locked them in the basement."

The fist may have been justified, but for an older man that detective sure did pack a punch. Jack barely had time to reel from the force of the blow and come up, sputtering, before he was being hauled out of his chair.

A nervous sort of energy came over Holmes. He became the man they'd seen so often when there was a case in the works. "Come, Lestrade!" he called over his shoulder as dragged Jack towards the front of the small police station, "The hunt is afoot!"

**Poor, poor Watson. He's in such a pickle. But kudos to Holmes for his show of emotion...**

**And kudos to you guys for your awesome reviews. Thanks to everyone who told us that Wilson and House were indeed based off of Holmes and Watson (you learn a new fact every day, huh?) Although we did feel very smart for making the comparison...**

**Anyways, please keep up the fantastic reviews.**


	6. White Shores, and Beyond

_**Gandalf**: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.  
**Pippin**: What? Gandalf? See what?  
**Gandalf**: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. **The Return of the King**_

Watson tried to keep his head above the water, but at his age, and with the slippery baby in his arms to think of, and knowing that he was standing on Mrs. Birchtold's dead body, he was starting to lose the battle.

It hadn't seemed like it would turn out this way. The delivery had been fast – three hours in the basement, three hours of quiet panting and high keening noises, three hours of Watson wishing that they had a midwife, or any woman, really, to relieve his embarrassment as such a gross act of impropriety. Three hours of quiet murmuring between contractions…

"What was your wife's name?" The woman asked, panting with exertion, her face flushed. She'd already made up her mind about this doctor – that she would kiss him, when all this was through, the sweet old man, and then invite him to stay at her house at the sea for as long as it took his nerves to heal.

Watson, one eye on the steadily rising water on the other side of the room, managed a wan smile. Not many women would hold up with such dignity in the face of crisis, though his years had taught him that women were, as a whole, stronger than men. "Her name was Mary."

The memories came back easily and he found himself talking at length about the woman he'd loved so fiercely, the woman who'd smile quietly whenever Holmes would stop by his practice, sometimes in the middle of the day but more often in the middle of the night, and proclaim that the hunt was afoot. The woman who he'd talk with at night in the library while she stitched and he wrote, talk with about their future together and about his past, and suddenly Afghanistan did not seem horrible and remote at all but just another dot on the long line that had brought him to her.

When at last he words dried up there was a dozing peace in the air, as if they weren't locked in a basement with the water rising and no way out, as if they weren't in the middle of a delicate procedure that required warm towels and hot water if not a hospital.

"She sounds lovely." Mrs. Birchtold murmured, tears running down her face, and though she told herself that they were from the difficulty of the labor she knew that at least a couple were from the story of love found, attained, and lost. "How did she die?"

At once she noticed her _faux pas_ and tried hurriedly to cover her mistake, but Watson, his kind eyes twinkling in the light of the many candles he'd lit, unexpectedly smiled, though this smile was quite possibly the saddest she'd ever seen. "She died in the winter of influenza. It seems that if we doctors are expected to cure sickness outside our homes we should at least have the power to eradicate the sickness within."

"Too true," Mrs. Birchtold said through gritted teeth.

The silence between them stretched, comfortable as that between two old friends. Watson eyed the water, creeping up their side of the basement, and once again surreptitiously checked the situation under Mrs. Birchtold's ripped and bloodied skirt. Any minute now…

And then it happened, and in Wastson's mind it seemed to take only an instant, though in reality it was closer to fifteen minutes. The world filled with pain and screams, to Watson trying and failing utterly to be soothing but firm. They had to get this baby out, even if it was breech, because there was no other option.

Finally, it came down to him with an old pocketknife, kept sharp out of habit. He could save the baby or he could save the woman he'd come to love in the span of a day, and he was all for saving the latter. She was already a mother, and with five children, she was necessary. There would be other babies.

And it would have to be one of the other. Have to be, because turning the child was impossible in this setting, though not for lack of trying. Either the mother or the child…

"A ninety-nine percent chance that I will die?" Mrs. Birchtold murmured when Watson told her the situation and the odds. She looked at him, tears of pain but not of fear in her eyes. She was loathe to leave her children, but how could she go back to them knowing she had killed their sibling? "Then, my dear doctor, I will have to pray for that one percent chance of life, won't I?"

It was over quickly, and blood mixed with the ankle-high flood water. Perhaps the mother would have lived if they'd been in a hospital – she almost certainly would have, for Watson, despite Holmes' derisive exclamations to the contrary, was an excellent doctor. But in the environment they were left with she was fading fast.

Watson used his over coat to wrap the baby in and went to sit at the woman's head. He took her hand and let her stroke the baby, now screaming in a loud, incredibly vital way. "You said you wanted to name the baby Harold?"

"My husband…" Mrs. Birchtold murmured, her voice full of pain but also of wonder, the kind that comes only with the knowledge that you have just created life. "He deserves a namesake."

"I'm afraid that Harold would be a woeful name for a girl to live with." Watson said, managing a ghost of a smile.

Mrs. Birchtold's laugh was heavenly, and only confirmed Watson's assumption that, in another time and place, he would like this woman very much. "Oh, I'm so glad…I detest that name."

She was fading fast, going towards that one place that every man must eventually go when the grey veil of the world rolled back to yield the white shores of the beyond. Still, she managed to run her hand over her daughter one more time. "Mary," she whispered, the name sounding right on her lips. "Her name is Mary."

And Watson fell completely in love with a woman for the second time in his life. She could be his best friend, his life companion, if not for the blood pouring out of her so fast. Still, the smile on her face never wavered, and her eyes were clear as she looked up at Watson. "I would like to kiss you," she croaked, suddenly as bashful as a school girl with a first crush.

Never one to disregard a dying wish, Watson pressed his lips to hers. It was a completely innocent act, yet filled with the words they were too old or too proper to say. Their lives, their fates, had become hopelessly intertwined because of this day. Parting was sweet sorrow, as the saying went, but there was also promise in that kiss, promise that Watson would save the baby, promise that Mrs. Birchtold would look for him in the next life.

Watson leaned back in time to see the light leave the woman's eyes. "Say hello to my Mary for me," Watson murmured, clutching little wailing Mary to his chest. He cleaned her with the towels and wrapped her in the only dry thing left: his overcoat, discarded early on out of habit so it wouldn't be soiled by the blood of labor. Now he was glad for the dry, warm clothing as he wrapped it around the baby, giving her a finger to suck on to appease her as he went for high ground.

The door was too far above him, the water pouring in too fast. Watson knew, with a sort of grim certainness, that he would die without aid. But again, he was absolutely sure that Holmes was on his way. His friend, eccentric and scatter-brained as he may be, had never failed him yet.

Which is how Watson ended up on top of Mrs. Birchtold's poor dead body, holding a baby named after his poor dead wife, hoping beyond hope that his friend would find an abandoned house in a quiet village before Watson was sent to meet his Lord for supper.

**There was one person who was adament about us not killing Mrs. Birchtold. We wanted to keep her, guys, but she was meant to be killed from the get-go. But, hey, baby Mary lives on...**

**Anyways, please review. For poor old Watson.**


	7. Findings and Friendship

_"It was worth a wound; it was worth many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain." **The Adventure of the Three Garridebs**_

Sherlock Holmes noticed the rising tide before the Yard did, and he was the one who urged them onward with his shouts, which got more and more frantic as the miles pattered out behind them. In the back of his mind was again the small voice that sounded like Watson (and who was he trying to fool, anyway? That small voice _was_ Watson.) and it was whispering to him.

_"Holmes, must you bluster at the Yard? They are doing all they can."_

It was all Holmes could do to keep the response internal. _"Yes, but they are doing it in a bumbling, ghastly slow way. It could kill you, John!"_

And they both paused, Holmes and the almost-Watson, thoughtfully turning over the word _John_ until it hung like a wall between them. Neither used the other's given name, though they'd shared rooms for going on ten years. It was always Holmes and Watson. Cordially, familiarly, even in a friendly way. But always that small amount of space, the colleague-like usage of the surname. Holmes's variation from the norm definitively proved that emotions were boiling just beneath the stoic surface.

He urged the carriage to go faster again, despite the fact that his "blustering at the Yard" as Watson would have put it, did absolutely nothing at all to affect the stride of the horses. They were still so far away from the house the young man had designated, too far for them to possibly get there before…before the tide.

"Holmes, what are you doing?" Lestrade asked, his voice jumping an octave with frustration and no small amount of concern. He cared for Watson deeply, had a strong suspicion that, if the worst should happen and Watson did perish, Holmes would be worse off for it. Lestrade remembered the detective in the years before the army doctor took up lodgings with him: a rude, impatient, arrogant man who tutted at the Yard's methods and was infuriatingly correct with his deductions.

So when Holmes stood up in the carriage and made to jump out the door, Lestrade was worried for an instant that the man would jump, a highly illogical thought, Lestrade knew, for if Sherlock Holmes operated on anything at all, it was pure logic. But he didn't jump – he scurried.

It was a motion so exactly like a squirrel that Lestrade stared, blinking, at the spot where Holmes had appeared for two seconds, three, before he put his head out the carriage door. They were clipping down the road at a brisk pace, fast enough to hurt if you fell and definitely fast enough to hurt if you fell _here_, off the bridge. But there was Holmes, working his way to the driver's seat by stuffing his fists into the crevices of the wood work and pinning his legs to the body of the carriage.

"Holmes! You'll get yourself killed!" And some part of Lestrade wondered if this wasn't just what Holmes wanted. The friendship that existed between Holmes and Watson was so deep and so very palpable that Lestrade could no longer imagine one without the other. What if Holmes and his dastardly logic had led him to the conclusion that the sight of Watson's body, wherever it was, broken and twisted, would hurt him more than death?

Holmes didn't even look over his shoulder, though that in and of itself wasn't particularly surprising. Holmes seemed to take every opportunity to spurn Lestrade's practical advice. Instead, he leapt from the driver's seat onto one of the horses, grabbing its mane and tugging off the harness that attached the animal to the carriage…

"Holmes!" Lestrade cried, but it was too late. Holmes dug his ankles into the horse's belly and galloped away, leaving the carriage lopsided and half as fast, leaving the Lestrade to once again follow in Holmes' wake.

.***.

Sherlock Holmes found the house easily enough, an abandoned water mill that no longer turned. Holmes let out a small groan of desperation and concern when he saw that the water level was halfway up the bank, plenty deep enough to flood the entire basement, as the young man had hinted. It was half past five…

Throwing the reins down, Sherlock leapt off the horse and shouldered open the door, half-stumbling with worry. The lock held sturdy but the wood splintered with a single blow and Holmes was in the one-room house…

"Where would he be?" Holmes raged, turning about, quick eyes taking in every detail. The internal Watson tried to soothe him, tried to hell him to slow down, but, as Holmes would have done to the real Watson this far along in the investigation, he ignored the voice.

There were no stairs leading down to a cellar, no closet with a trick door behind it, and no obvious trapdoor in the floor that would open onto a basement. But Sherlock Holmes was notorious for looking past the obvious…why couldn't he employ that skill now, here, with Watson's life on the line?

And Holmes knew that it was for that very reason – because it was _Watson's_ life on the line, not some stranger's – that he couldn't focus as he usually could. Watson, who was really the only friend Holmes had ever had, who would smile as Holmes delved into cross-dressing for an investigation and jump at the chance to join in on another case. Watson…

It was pure chance that his foot happened to kick the key ring mostly hidden under the carpet, though later Holmes would rage at himself for not seeing the quite obvious trapdoor. Still, he was on his knees in an instant, scrambling to pull it open, heart pounding madly in his chest. The Watson in his mind, the one that just might be a conscience of sorts, had gone suddenly, awfully quiet….

When he finally pried open the door, he found himself sitting not four inches above a great pool of water. _No wonder the house has been abandoned so long_, Holmes mused to himself even as he stuck his hands in, searching blindly for his Watson, _it's lucky the whole structure hasn't already crumpled in on itself!_

But there was little time to muse. Because he knew that Watson, even at the best of times, was not a confident swimmer. Because he knew that, as a result of the recent bullet wound (for which he will admit some guilt) and the old aching injuries, this was not exactly the best of times. Because his friend was down there, somewhere, drowning…drowning.

Holmes had had a childhood fear of drowning. When he was little he would run down to a large pond in the backwoods of a neighbor's property, Mycroft lagging about in his wake, book in hand and grumbling about the necessity of watching over him. _"You'll drown." _Mycroft used to predict sullenly, nose stuck firmly in book as young Sherlock had paddled across the lake. _"And I won't be inclined to save you, brother, I assure you of that."_

The thought of Watson (who, Holmes will admit only after all these years of living with him, knowing him) was his only true friend, the most loyal companion a man could ever hope for, succumbing to the fate that he himself so feared was terrifying.

He dug hopelessly into the water, still on his knees, unwilling to dive into the icy pool, because there was no way he could pull himself and Watson (and, presumably, that other woman, too) out. But the fact that Watson hadn't said anything when the light poured in was terrifying.

And then there it was, the simple word that managed to restart Sherlock's empty heart. "Holmes…"

"John!" Holmes exclaimed, and their hands met, grasping at the wrists. An anchor. A lifeline.

And Sherlock Holmes, who Inspector Lestrade and others over the course of the years, used to call detached, inhuman…Sherlock Holmes felt a tear of utter relief on his cheek. Watson was safe.

Everything would be okay.

**Well of course not _everything. _There's still a chapter or two left of emotional turmoil, because it's so much fun to write.**

**Merry Christmas everyone!**


	8. On Death and Dying

_"And at that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a Cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning, that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn." **JRR Tolkien**_

.***.

Watson desperately treaded water, but his leg felt at once both leaden and fiery and he was so very, very tired. Still, the bundle in his arms that mewed weakly must be saved before Watson let himself succumb to the ever-more appealing darkness. "Holmes! Take the baby!"

"Baby?" At any other time the sheer incredulity of Holmes's voice would have made Watson laugh, but Watson didn't think he'd ever found a situation less amusing in his life.

He proffered the baby to Holmes, hand wavering dangerously under the nearly non-existent weight of a scant few premature pounds, and he caught a brief sight of his friend's concerned grey eyes. In that instant he realized the dilemma: Holmes could not accept the baby without taking his hand away from Watson's, and the fear and concern in Holmes's normally calm, glittering eyes proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the day that had been so heartbreaking for Watson had been harrowing for Holmes as well.

"Please, Sherlock…" Watson said, catching the glint of _something_ in the detective's eye at the use of the first name, never knowing that just an hour earlier Holmes had mused over their habit of calling each other by surnames only.

"Please," Watson begged again, fearing that he would drop the baby into the icy waters and it would be lost after all, no matter how much strife the mother had gone through to bring it into existence. "The baby…"

And the hand that was anchoring the old doctor to the world suddenly let go, the weight on his other hand was snatched away, and Watson was lost, sinking down, down into the basement, unable to even bring up the will to make another strike for the surface. He had done his duty to the dying woman and delivered the child into safe, albeit reluctant, hands. He deserved some rest.

It is a strange thing, Watson decided as he floated in limbo in the tide-water, that man should fear death, especially a man such as he. He had seen many comrades succumb to that last darkness, had lived through the death of his wife, his beloved Mary…what had he to fear? He, a man who had lived his life doing nothing but helping others, deserved at least this time to rest.

He almost let go of the tenuous bonds that tethered him to life. He had made his peace with death and with the Lord the moment he'd entered this basement with the wonderfully brave Mrs. Birchtold. No, it was not fear of the afterlife that made him struggle against the peace of eternity.

It was a single face in his mind, a face repeated a thousand times in different expressions and environments: the determined chin and intelligent grey eyes and hawk-like nose of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes crowing with elation when he cracked a case, Holmes smoking a pipe as he thought, Holmes proclaiming that the hunt was afoot, Holmes concentrating hard as he played Watson's favorite violin concerto, Holmes with wild eyes and strong arms asking Watson if he was alright.

He knew, the same way Lestrade and the Yard knew, the same way Sherlock himself knew somewhere deep down, that Holmes needed him. They were friends, and Watson suspected it went beyond that, for Watson felt for Holmes a love that he had never felt for his own brother. In those terrible years when Watson had forsaken Holmes for dead, when Mary had died and Watson had been sure, quite sure, that there was no reason left to live…well, how could he forgive himself if he made Holmes live through depression such as that?

These thoughts ran through Watson's mind in a fraction of a second and he knew, in the instant before death claimed him, that he had to continue doing what he'd been doing his whole life. He had to go on fighting.

The decision was taken out of his hands, though. At that point Watson's limbs were frozen and tense, and he knew for a fact that he was getting too old to be getting involved in these cases. The desire for life coursed through him, but there wasn't hope in his tired body. He struggled against the bonds of death, wanting nothing more than to get to the surface and his friend, but he felt himself being inexorably pulled back into the cold embrace…

A hand closed around his arm just as his eyes were closing, a thin hand with long fingers calloused from years of violin-playing. And as Watson reached oblivion Holmes started dragging him towards the surface, praying that he'd get to safety before Watson had time to pay Charon's fare.

.***.

Lestrade had prepared himself for the doctor's death.

It wasn't a pleasant task. Lestrade was fond of Watson; liked him for his easy-going nature and confidence and loyalty, even if he did place it in someone as strange and unpredictable as Sherlock Holmes. But Lestrade had prepared, had made himself ready for the man's passing.

Which is why he couldn't help the other officers when they hauled up Holmes's body out of the trapdoor in the tiny house next to the banks of the overflowing river. Couldn't, because he couldn't bring himself to touch the doctor's dead body, to confirm that the man was really and truly gone. He turned back only when Holmes began sputtering, striking Hopkins with his elbow in his effort to get up.

"Stay down, Holmes, you're likely to kill yourself." But Lestrade couldn't put too much authority into his voice. He was too old for this job, too old to see good men die in such senseless crimes. _Money_, he thought bitterly, _is the root of all evil._

"And will you stop that blasted crying, Gregson!" The Inspector ordered, rounding on the man who was holding the tiny baby girl, whining the thin, hungry wails of a newborn.

Tobias shifted around, bouncing the baby lightly in his arms. In the end, he gave her the corner of his handkerchief, dipped in water, for her to suck on which at least stopped the wails.

"Watson!" Sherlock choked, struggling valiantly against Hopkins' strong grip, and Lestrade felt his last nerve snap.

"He's dead, Holmes!" He barked, fists clenching because _damnit_ he was too old to get worked up over these things, even for good men like the doctor. Holmes stopped struggling then, stopped doing anything at all, the for the first time the grey eyes that met Lestrade's blue ones were completely and terribly surprised.

"He's not."

And Lestrade rounded on one of the younger men, Brown or Bird or whatever his name was, who was kneeling over the doctor's body, his hand pressed against Watson's throat. The young Yarder, who was definitely either Brown or Bird, looked up at Lestrade and the old Inspector saw a reflection of his own relief in this man's face. "He's not dead. He's a tough old bird, this one."

Holmes threw off Hopkins, nearly making him land in the swimming hole of the basement, and rushed to press his hand against his flatmate's chest. There was a tense instant where every man in the house waited with bated breath for life to be confirmed.

"He's alive." Holmes breathed, and Lestrade was quite sure he'd never seen such a human emotion ever grace the man's face as he did just then. Holmes patted his friend once on the chest before turning to Lestrade. "Case wrapped up, then?"

"What?" Lestrade asked distractedly, unable to rip his eyes away from his men huddled around the old doctor, shucking overcoats and jackets to try to warm the body up. "Oh, yes," he said, "Except for the pregnant woman."

"Dead, obviously." Holmes said, waving a dismissive hand. "Watson would have saved her if she were alive." And did Lestrade detect some pride in the detective's voice? "As that mewing thing in Gregson's arms can be none other than her offspring."

"Quite right," Lestrade said, knowing that they'd have to retrieve the woman's body sooner or later from that basement, knowing he'd have to find the family, somehow, to give the baby to. Knowing that there was work to be filled out and statements to be taken.

But, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to get to all that stuff right then because a miracle was happening right in front of his eyes. Two miracles, actually. Watson coughed, sputtered, and breathed in deep, shuddering firmly back to the land of the living, and Holmes turned round abruptly and ran over to him, already proclaiming a list of Watson's fallacy's, each word really meaning, _"Are you alright?" _and _"I was very worried." _and, perhaps the sentiment that was laced most of all throughout Holmes's words, _"You scared me, my friend. My friend."_

**Watson is saved and everyone is happy...almost.**

**What will happen to baby Mary? Will they ever find Mrs. Birchtold's family? Will the two ever get their holiday? Tune in next week for 'Woody's Finest Hour!'**


	9. Seaside, Finally

_for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find at the sea. **e.e. cummings**_

.***.

"Holmes." Watson said, looking out the window of his small room in St. Barts hospital two days after he'd been fished from the flood under the old house. He was still feeling the effects of the nasty cold he'd picked up from being in the frigid water, but he was mercifully able to stretch his legs. His cane was once again a permanent feature at his side, and, according to the doctor's and his own unwilling inclination, must remain there for the rest of his life.

"Holmes." He said again, turning from the window to face his friend, sitting in the chair and note even glancing at the spectacular sunset over London that St. Barts always afforded them. "You know where we must go now."

Sherlock Holmes turned, revealing the small baby he had tucked under one arm. Little Mary had suffered no adverse effects from being in the water. She didn't even know that she should be pining for a mother's touch, for since Lestrade had dumped the girl into Holmes's arms back at the house to keep him from getting in the way of the Yard the detective had not put her down except to give her to one of the young mothers in the hospital to nurse her.

"Of course, Watson. Has Lestrade found the woman's home?"

"Mrs. Birchtold." Watson reminded gently, knowing that the name would slip from Holmes's memory in a matter of minutes. The detective could never remember details as insignificant as names for very long unless they were attached to violent characters. "And yes. Apparently Mrs. Birchtold takes…took…the same train every week to visit her sister in London. Her return ticket is for a small town on the coast, and there was only one woman who matched Mrs. Birchtold's description…I have the address here."

He fumbled with the address and started to read it off before he noticed that Holmes wasn't paying attention to him. "Really, Sherlock." Watson said shakily, collapsing back down on the bed. He didn't quite have the energy yet to stand for any length of time. "You mustn't hold her like that. She's a baby, not a book."

"I've been holding her for two days." Holmes retorted, clutching the squirming baby to his chest. "And she does not seem the worse for my manhandling."

"It's a wonder you haven't dropped her yet." Watsons aid, drawing baby Mary towards him and leaving Sherlock _harrumph _-ing in the chair. Watson held the whimpering babe in the crook of his arm and bounced her lightly until her cries subsided. "Now that I have your attention." He said to Holmes, catching as his old friend just caught himself from rolling his eyes. "We need to go to the sea. Lestrade has informed the family of Mrs. Birchtold's death and of the existence of this baby."

"If he did all that why didn't he just take the blasted thing with him?" Holmes asked, irritable now that the baby was no longer in his arms.

"Because I wanted to do that myself." Watsons aid quietly. "The woman died in my arms. That hasn't happened since the war, old friend. And I was connected to her as I haven't been to any woman since my Mary's passing."

"It only weighs eight pounds." Sherlock mused, head resting lightly on his fingertips in a position Watson had come to know well. "Such a fuss over so small a thing."

"You will never be a father, Holmes." Watson said with a small smile.

"If I have any luck at all, you'll be right." Holmes said, standing up. "So are we off now?" A light came over Holmes's face and he smiled broadly at some inner joke. "After all, Watson, I did promise you a trip to the sea-side."

"And I only had to be kidnapped and thrown in a basement to reap my reward." Watson said, eyes twinkling.

Sherlock nodded and whisked out of the room to discharge Watson and the baby, but not before he put a firm hand on Watson's shoulder and squeezed, conveying with that gesture sentiments that he was incapable of putting into words. That he was glad Watson had gotten out of the basement with nothing worse than a cold. That he was sorry for Mrs. Birchtold's death and the baby they were honor-bound to return to its proper father. That he was sorry for everything.

And Watson, because he was Holmes's Watson, his Boswell, his friend, understood.

.***.

The sea murmured its tune against the bluffs, a desolate sound that ebbed and flowed like the tide, like some large animal's careful breathing. At the top of the windy hill overlooking the sea was a beautiful, tiny house that Watson, with his fondness of the coast and love of all things unique, could have easily spent the rest of his life in.

"Take the baby." Holmes murmured, his voice uncharacteristically soft. In the past few days he'd learned not to raise his voice around baby Mary, as well as how to tell the difference between her cry for food and her cry that meant she wanted to be rocked. Looking at the small house, it became real to him that they were giving this baby up forever, and he found himself saddened at the prospect, as if the baby was something more than just another piece in a puzzle, as if she was a tiny human being who had wormed her way into Sherlock's notriously hard heart.

Watson obliged him and took the baby from his arms after he'd stepped out of the carriage. Holding the baby firmly and using his cane and Holmes's ready hand on his arm for balance, he made his way up to the front door.

The man who answered the knock had a pained look Watson recognized from his own grief. It was the expression of one who has lost his true love, and Watson felt his big heart break for this man, Harold, who had cared so deeply for a woman Watson himself had cared for. Around him was a cluster of children, from a boy on the cusp of adulthood to a girl no more than four years old.

"Hello." Was all Holmes was able to get out before the tiny girl started jumping with pleasure.

"Is that my baby brother? Did you bring me my baby brother?" The oldest boy caught her by the shoulders to stop her from jumping and she quieted, though the look of excitement never left her eyes.

"Almost, little one." Watson said, smiling despite himself at the child's eagerness. "It turns out that this baby is a tiny girl. She is your younger sister. Is that all right with you?"

"A sister's even better!" The little girl exclaimed, touching Mary's sleeping face with one pudgy finger. "I already have two brothers, you know, and now I get to have two sisters!" She clapped her hands together and twirled on the spot in her pleasure. "And I can dress her up like my dollies! She's almost the same size and if Anna helps me we can put her in the little clothes!"

"She's not a doll, Lottie, she's a baby. You can't just dress her up. She needs to be cared for." The older sister, presumably Anna, said. This girl was about thirteen years old and reached out her arms for the baby. "I can take her from here, sir."

The father looked between Holmes and Watson, still on his doorstep, and his children. "Perhaps we should all go inside. Anna, will you put on the kettle? Peter, find Prim, she'll be down by the water, and milk her. It looks like this little thing is hungry." The two oldest scattered and Harold led Holmes and Watson down a short hall to a cozy kitchen.

"I'm afraid I can't offer you much more than tea misters…" he paused, waiting for their names.

"I am Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock said settling into a chair. "And my companion is Dr. John Watson. He was with your wife when she passed."

Tears of grief sprung again to the man's eyes but they didn't fall, and Watson felt himself liking Harold for this. He needed to be strong for his children, after all, and the two youngest were looking at him, taking their cues from him.

"So you didn't bring my mother?" The little boy asked, climbing onto Holmes's leg and making the world-renowned detective look a bit frightened at the prospect of having a child want to be so near to him.

"Michael, I told you that your mother went to heaven. She died when the baby was born and is with God." Harold said gently. "Come here. Get off Mr. Holmes. You have better manners than that."

"It's quite alright." Watson answered for Holmes, smiling at his friend's obvious distress. "Holmes is very fond of children." Turning to the young boy, Watson said, "Michael, I was with your mother when she died and I can tell you that she was very, very brave."

"I know." Michael said, wrapping his fists in the folds of Holmes's jacket. "My mother was always brave. She killed spiders, you know, when they got into the kitchen."

"Did she now?" Watson said, only to have his attention re-directed with a small pat on his bad knee. "Oh! Little one – Lottie, is it? – why don't you climb on this leg so you can look at your sister." With that hand that wasn't holding the baby Watson helped the little girl onto his lap. "Her name is Mary."

"That's a pretty name." Lottie assured Watson as she looked at the little bundle in his arms. "I like her." She declared happily. "Now I am not the youngest and the boys will stop treating me like a baby."

"You are a baby, dear." Anna said, balancing a tray of tea as she came into the room. "But if you are so intent on growing up then perhaps you can go help Peter milk Prim. The baby is going to want her milk when she wakes up. You too, Michael. Peter will be wanting somebody strong to carry the bucket."

The two youngest left, happy to be told to play with their favorite goat, and the oldest daughter poured the tea deftly and handed it to the guests first, as he mother had taught her, before giving a cup to her father with a kiss. "I'll be outside as well, father."

"Thank you darling." Harold said, sighing as she left the three men alone in the room with the newborn.

"Your children are beautiful."

Watson looked at Holmes in surprise at the words, for the detective was notorious for disliking anyone younger than twenty, females in particular.

"Anna and Peter are the only ones who really understand what Beatrice being gone really means. Anna in particular has become a mother these past few days." Harold took a single sip of his tea before getting up and crossing the room in a few steps.

He knelt until he was level with the baby, level with Watson's eyes. "Thank you for saving my daughter." Harold Birchtold said, sincerity and gratitude laced in each syllable. "And I am glad that you were with her when she…when she passed. You seem like a good man."

"He is the highest quality." Holmes said, the second startling thing to come out of his mouth in a minute, and Watson stared at his friend as he handed off the baby. The two were doomed to take no wives their whole lives, and as Mary left his arms Watson knew that they were also doomed to be childless creatures.

But he and Holmes had reached a new understanding this past week, a new level of friendship even after all their decades together. And Watson felt that if he was to be a bachelor all his life, there was no one he'd rather spend it with than Sherlock Holmes.

**The End**

**I know that a lot of people wanted Holmes and Watson to keep Mary, but they just couldn't. That would be kidnapping, and Watson is too fond of Mrs. Birchtold and the law to allow that. So they got their sea-side and their ending which, in the way of life and all the best stories, is not entirely happy, nor entirely without hope. **

**For the last time, all you beautiful readers out there, we ask you to review.**


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